Daniel Radcliffe Has a Real-Life Invisibility Cloak, And It’s Called Not Being on Facebook

So. Say you’ve suddenly become a celebrity. You love your job, but you don’t want to feel like your personal life is no longer your own. What do you do? According to Daniel Radcliffe, you stay off of social media.

During a recent interview for Sky News, Daniel was asked whether, being one of the most recognizable face on the planet, he still struggles at all with protecting his privacy. Here’s what he had to say:

“I’ve got better at not letting it affect me. I think I used to be a little bit overwhelmed by it—I would let it get to me a bit more—but now, I’m much more at a level [where] it can’t really affect me. There are certain things, you can make it a lot easier on yourself. You know, if you don’t, for instance, go to premieres that aren’t in a film you’re in, or don’t just turn up at other events or stuff like that. That’s obviously going to help…. And also I don’t have Twitter or Facebook, and I think that makes things a lot easier. Because if you go on Twitter and tell everybody what you’re doing moment to moment, and then claim you want a private life—no one’s going to take that request seriously.”

Sound advice. Whether or not you like him as an actor (he’s grown on me over the years), if there’s one thing we can safely say he does well, it’s walking that line between publicizing his projects and keeping his personal life personal. It’s true that Twitter, and Facebook, and Instagram, and every other social media service out there can be great tools for celebrities and other famous people for connecting with their fans and boosting their brand; but in our current climate of oversharing, they’re also rather dangerous if overused. The best way to keep people focused on your work and not on tabloid headlines is by keeping yourself accessible as a person, but not so accessible that you stop seeing the work and ONLY see that person. I give Daniel credit for maintaining his public image such that we never feel like he’s shoving himself in our faces all the time, and it’s a tactic that famous and non-famous people alike could benefit from using.

Of course, what’s not helping is that even for normals, not being on Facebook apparently causes alarm bells to ring; potential employers have developed a habit of labeling anyone withoutFacebook “suspicious,” which is probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. But hey, moderation in all things, right?